Cool Stars 14 - Submitted Abstract # 101
This version created on 05 October 2006

Very low-mass stars and brown dwarfs in close binary systems


R.D. Jeffries, Keele University
P.F.L. Maxted, Keele University
R.J. Jackson, Keele University

The numbers of brown dwarfs and very low-mass stars in roughly equal
mass, close binary systems is very uncertain.  Several new radial
velocity surveys have appeared recently and here we present our
efforts to reanalyse these using a uniform set of assumptions and the
latest version of our Monte-Carlo modelling code.  Our conclusions are
that the different surveys give a discrepant picture of the numbers of
low-mass binary systems with semi-major axes less than 1 au.  The
discrepancies are probably caused by target selection biases.

----------------------------------